Jazz and Classical Music Blend at New Festival.
Sono Fest!, founded and programmed by jazz pianist and composer Ethan Iverson, is a new festival that merges jazz and classical traditions. The festival offers multiple sets and encourages audiences to experience the same program again. The festival features jazz standards, traditional chamber music, and adaptations of Schumann. Iverson's Piano Sonata, which he premiered last year, is structured like a sonata in the model of Haydn and other classical forebears, but with nods to jazz legends James P. Johnson and Bobby Timmons. Iverson is looking for new paths within what he calls "this very American phenomenon."